'There is a big problem': Senators unite to slam FOIA compliance
The premier transparency law is hobbled by backlogs and mountains of electronic data, lawmakers are told.
By Josh Gerstein, Politico, Mar. 29, 2022
The often bitterly divided Senate Judiciary Committee had little difficulty Tuesday finding consensus that the nation’s premier transparency law, the Freedom of Information Act, isn’t working well.
“My conclusion from this is: there is a big problem,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said during an oversight hearing on the federal government’s ongoing struggle to implement the records-access law in a timely way.
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) said he believes the half-century-old statute allowing journalists, advocacy groups and members of the public to request federal agency records appears to be failing to live up to its original ambitions.
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